


the red string axiom

by anupturnedboat



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Gen, Lydia-centric, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pack Bonding, Plans For The Future, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 20:26:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2322134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anupturnedboat/pseuds/anupturnedboat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pretend there was no love so sweet that you would have died for it, pretend that it does not belong to someone else now; pretend like your heart depends on it because it does. Pretend there is no wreck -- you watched the train go by and felt the air brush your face and that was it. Another train passing. You do not need trains. You can fly. You are a superhero. And there is no kryptonite. ~ Daphne Gottlieb ~15 Ways to Stay Alive</p>
<p>Lydia Martin knows enough about math to not get mixed up in triangles. </p>
<p>Post S4 one shot</p>
            </blockquote>





	the red string axiom

_Pretend there was no love so sweet that you would have died for it, pretend that it does not belong to someone else now; pretend like your heart depends on it because it does. Pretend there is no wreck -- you watched the train go by and felt the air brush your face and that was it. Another train passing. You do not need trains. You can fly. You are a superhero. And there is no kryptonite. ~ Daphne Gottlieb ~15 Ways to Stay Alive_

The thing Lydia likes about math is its solidity. Rules, probabilities, equations, theorems – they stay in place, they make sense. They are not swayed by distance, changes in the wind, or death - they just are.

Everything else is transient, and that is so fucking unsettling.

Over the summer, they sell both houses and move into something smaller. A nondescript one story that would have shamed her two years ago, but now, it's just another thing on top of all the other things that have happened, and really, it could be worse.

The new house is on the edge of town, near the burned out wreck of the old Hale house. It takes her an extra fifteen minutes every morning to go the long way so she doesn't have to pass that place.

Her mother gets a job teaching at Devenford Prep, and all she can think, is that they have werewolves there too. But she looks through the admission package her mother brings home anyway.

Devenford offers classes like multivariable calculus and linear algebra, she reminds herself, feeling zoned out, waiting, a half-eaten apple in hand. These are the kinds of classes she needs to be taking if she is going to go Ivy League.

She can feel the flicker of Scott's curious gaze, she must be emitting something, but then he turns back to Kira, and Lydia is grateful that he isn't going to require some kind of explanation for her mood.

She doesn't say anything about Devenford Prep to any of them. She is still waiting to find out if she has passed the admission exam, because if she doesn't, well, then there won't be any reason for awkward conversations.

When it's official, she means to tell them. At lunch – over quick and at once, but then she just . . . doesn't.

So maybe during sixth when it just Stiles and Scott.

But then the moment slips away, and she is alone emptying out her locker.

Later she meets Danny for coffee and she says - _no, she hasn't heard from Ethan, but she will let him know if she does._ Danny says Jackson is still in boarding school, but he hasn't heard from him in weeks. She tells him her news about Devenford like it is nothing, all the practiced words slipping out so effortlessly. He hugs her like he understands, and maybe he does a little, because the two of them have lost a lot of the same things.

On Monday she is wearing all new clothes, new heels and new lipstick. For the first time in a long time, she feels like a normal girl. One's whose mascara isn't always smudged, whose throat isn't always sore. One who doesn't know that the pounding of her heart in her ears is the last sound before passing out to black.

As much as she misses the pack - friends, just friends, no more pack (because in the real world that isn't really a _thing_ ) she reminds herself that the sadness will fade. Someday she will look back and think about those few crazy years of high school and how bad stuff happened, but she picked herself up and kept moving. She will think about the people that had mattered, and how people can't always stay the same. It's a future she presses towards, her heart in her throat.

_One down_ , she congratulates herself at the end of the day, her bag on her shoulder, as she makes her way through the double doors with everyone else.

It is the busted front headlight of Stiles' Jeep she sees first, then Scott clenching and unclenching his fists like he doesn't know what to do.

She feels the color draining out of her face. The plan had been to fade away without them noticing much, it had been in the works for a while. It was pretty solid logic on her part, the last time she'd lost all her friends it had been just that easy.

She knows people are watching, whispering, and now her cover is blown. She recovers before she starts crying (she fucking hates crying) flips her hair and sighs exasperatedly. She is about to tell them it is pretty shitty to show up here and cause a scene on her first day at a new school. The sharp words are on her tongue and then -

"What the hell Lydia? "Stiles growls pushing past Scott, the ferocity making her swallow her words with a snap.

* * *

"He's sorry he yelled at you," Scott says without preamble the next afternoon on her front stoop. She pulls the door closed behind her, making it clear he is not invited in. Some things have to be just hers now.

"I am sure he is since I'm no longer speaking to him," she replies flippantly, but unable to disguise the weird squiggle of anger that colors her words with meaning.

"Technically you were already not speaking to him," Scott shrugs, studying her. It makes her nervous. She does not want to talk about Stiles.

"What do you want from me Scott? I've got a lot of studying to do." She snaps crossing her arms and making sure she looks over his shoulder instead of into his eyes. Maybe he will take the hint.

"Are you ok?" he asks intruding on her personal space, more puppy than Alpha, and it makes her feel washed out and hollow and mean. "Because this is weird," he says, "transferring out and not telling us."

It i _s_ weird. She is weird now. That is his fault, and Peter's fault and Allison's fault and Jacksons' fault, and Stiles's fault she thinks spitefully. But she can't say it like that. "We moved this summer you know," she says changing the subject.

"I know," he nods. " _We know_ ," he adds for emphasis.

She kind of wants to punch him in the throat, so he knows what this hoarseness in hers feels like, because he doesn't _know_ a goddamn thing. He doesn't _know_ how wrong it feels that he hooked up with Kira and stopped touching Allison's locker every time he passed it. He doesn't _know_ she is terribly fucking sad that Jackson never emails her back. (It isn't like she is trying to get him back; she'd just like to confirm that he hasn't gotten himself cut in half or something.) He doesn't _know_ that it absolutely fucking hurts when someone stops looking at you like you matter. And he doesn't know how much she needs to organize her life back into something that at least roughly resembles a version of herself that she actually wants to be.

"Well, this house is further away from BHH, and my mom got a job teaching here, so . . . free," she explains instead. "It's silly to turn down a chance at a better education. College is right around the corner. And last year was kind of a mess."

He nods, agreeing, but she can tell he is reading her too. She raises a brow, annoyed.

"What about us though?" he asks, "What about –"

"Oh my god McCall!" She yells backing him down the steps, her hands on her hips. Everything is always about his precious pack. "I didn't move to Mars! You guys can send up the bat signal whenever something shows up and starts killing people ok?"

"That's not what I was going to say -"

"Can we just end this now? I have a lot of homework."

"Fine," he says, from the last step. "But Lydia, can you call him? He's kind of losing his mind."

* * *

She doesn't call Stiles. Not because she is mad at him, or because anything even happened to cause this distance. Except maybe something did, but Lydia Martin knows enough about math to not get mixed up in triangles.

Sometimes a clean break is better.

She has learned that the hard way, at least two times over.

So she doesn't call.

* * *

None of it changes what fucking Peter Hale has made her. Even without Stiles and Scott and the others, she still hears things, not as often, but still -

She drives when things slip, and voices start percolating. It means something is coming, but it is annoyingly faint, so that means not yet, or maybe not at all. Just a tickle under her skin for now, and nothing she can do anything about.

She drives with the music turned up loud. She's making up playlists, rearranging the songs, different permutations for the different problems she's working out. It works to keep her from wandering around, losing time, and finding dead things.

Allison's necklace, a leather braid, a pretty blue stone, hangs around her rearview mirror; it holds her in place, when the loud music doesn't.

It's October, almost Halloween, and when the sun sets, the air is cool and misty, and she's got twelve songs cued up in her head, in the exact order she needs to hear them.

There is an abandoned drive-in just outside of Beacon Hills. It overlooks a valley of tangled trees. The pavement is broken and chunks of asphalt kick up under car.

It is a perfect place for something bad to happen. She wishes she hadn't driven here, but at least she remembers doing it, so maybe whatever is coming is still far enough away to not matter. Maybe it will come next fall when she is gone.

She isn't half as scared as she used to be. It's not bravado- just that she isn't going to be deterred from the path she wants to forge for herself. Not by werewolves, or any other supernatural creatures – her included.

The moon is bright, but not full, _thank god,_ and she puts her key in the ignition.

When was the next full moon anyway?

Stiles would know.

A long time ago, somewhere between Isaac and Liam, she had shown him the formula for calculating the date and approximate time of each full moon. He had put ten dates on both of their phone's calendars, with two alerts, but those dates had all come and gone, and he never had gotten around to an update.

Before she can change her mind, she opens up the map on her phone and texts him a link with a red push pin in it.

* * *

After a while, they had stopped needing words. Fear was common, punctuated by a shared look, a clasp of fingers, or a mutual breath.

Back then she had felt weak and so lost so much of the time, but then she'd find herself doing something extraordinary, and things would click into place. She would look over and Stiles would be standing next to her, whether she needed him to or not.

They had been superheroes then.

The Kick-Ass kind, but still -

But now, she can't really read the look on his face, and he's leaning against her car, deflated.

They should probably go back to words because that effortless short-hand doesn't work anymore, and there is no going back.

She doesn't know what he's thinking, why he's come. She licks her lips nervously. She doesn't know why she reached out to him either, and maybe this was a spectacularly bad idea.

She's about to slip into the front seat, the awkwardness between them is too much.

"So there's this study about predators and their prey," he says interrupting her thoughts. It comes out rough and strained, not sounding like Stiles at all. She opens her mouth, but she's stuck for words.

"It says that a group performs a protective function when they are together," he presses on, watching the tangle of trees beyond them rustle. "But those who stray from the group are more likely to become victims."

Her pulse is all sped up and she can feel her face getting warm. She thinks she gets what he's trying to say that he's worried about her getting hurt, blah, blah, blah. It's always the same with these boys, thinking girls can't protect themselves when it counts. Well, he's wrong about her, she's learned a lot about protecting herself.

"Great opening line," she says after a beat, wrangling her voice into a practiced neutrality. "I'm guessing I'm the victim in this scenario? Can we go back to silence? I'd rather not get a lecture about how me changing schools is affecting pack dynamics."

He doesn't say anything, but his knee jumps. She wants to dig her elbow into his ribs, force him to get his spastic energy under control before it spreads and makes her shaky.

"Or, like soldiers -" "

Soldiers?" she interrupts, raising and eyebrow.

He turns to look at her, and there is indecision in his eyes. She can feel his nervousness, it speaks to something in her bones, sets her heart fluttering. It's like static over airwaves.

"Battalions – they work together, protect each other in dangerous situations right?"

"I guess so," she mummers, trying hard to ignore the full volume static that is thrumming between them now. "Can you just get to the point already?"

Stiles pauses, and then in a rush, "Scott's dad told him that our group behaves strangely to stuff. Like people dying, or shoot-ups at the hospital, or animal attacks-"

"He's right we do," she agrees dismissively.

"But we are coping. And it's only because we are there for each other."

She can feel him watching her. The voices are still there, a low hum she's trying to ignore. It's getting cold, she wraps her arms around herself, and she can't meet his eyes.

"We keep each other alive, like guys who have been through the worst of the worst together. It's a trauma induced bonding thing."

"Ok, I get it," she acquiesces. "But no one can fight a war together forever, at some point everyone has to go home alone."

"Sure, but it doesn't mean that thing between them just goes away," he says reaching for her wrist, pulling her close. "It's called affectional bonding," he says softly, his breath in her hair. "There's like five criteria and-"

"Stiles-"

He ignores her. "One of the criteria is that the other is not interchangeable for anyone else."

She raises her eyes to his, he is so close, and -

"And one of them," he says, his other hand moving towards her hip, fingers flexing, pulling her closer and exhaling against her collarbone, "is that separation from that person causes great distress."

She shivers because it is cold and she hasn't brought a jacket.

"There's a bunch of other junk," he says thickly, not allowing her to look away. "But mostly that the people who have this bond need to be in proximity of each other. It's like a profound thing that happens in the brain," he finishes, his fingers slipping under her shirt, tracing indecent patterns on her skin.

Her head is full of voices, but now she's really tuning them out, because the points where his space intersects with hers, is buzzing- _static over airwaves_. She can feel his eyelashes against her skin and then his lips are yearning, honing in on that thrum of electricity between them.

It races all the way down to her toes.

She grabs for his collar. He heatedly presses her closer, his palm on the small of her back.

She is out of breath, holding on, thinking there is an equation somewhere in this moment, something complicated, that they (and only they) could make sense of if-

Except they can't, and she pulls away.

"You can't do this," she cautions breathlessly. " _We_ can't do this."

His eyes linger on her lips for a beat, and then dejectedly, "I want to."

And the problem is, she _could_ do this, she's perfectly capable of being selfish.

"This isn't you Stiles, you don't cheat on girlfriends. That's not the guy you are. I don't want to make you into that person."

"I don't know what this is –" he starts. "Why it is, but I just feel -"

"I know," she says forcing herself to put distance between them, wrapping her arms around herself. "It's all too much and not enough."

He nods like that makes sense, even though she is sure they aren't talking about the same thing.


End file.
